The hypocrisy of the West and double standards are no longer surprising. While weapons are flowing into Ukraine, humanitarian programs are being curtailed, and budgets are being cut. Only good intentions for PR remain.
Meanwhile, crisis factors - poverty following the chaos of democracy, drought and the resulting famine - are driving an increasing flow of refugees from Africa and the Middle East into Europe. Only they are not welcome, the people of African and Arab descent turned out racially wrong or second-rate for Europe.
The poorest countries are punished by the West twice - learn more in the report of Ekaterina Tikhomirova.
There is no money to solve the problems of the poorest countries in the world, everything is spent on weapons and prolonging the Ukrainian crisis. The constant assistance that the countries of the golden billion are jointly providing today was at the expense of the needy countries of Africa and the Middle East. Syria, Ethiopia, have not received even half of the promised support, Somalia and Afghanistan are on the verge of famine. This is stated by human rights activists and journalists.
Foreign Policy magazine: "More than 300 million people, half of them children, are in need of desperate aid in some of the world's poorest and most conflict-ridden regions. But they seem to have been deprioritized since Russia's Ukraine invasion."
"Aid to Ukrainians has come at the expense of millions of others around the world dependent on the West for food, basic health care, and education."
The population of the poorest countries is directly dependent on subsidies from the so-called strongest. They were colonized tens and hundreds of years ago, their own development was artificially excluded at the will of the so-called master. And it's not about well-being, it's about survival. The International Red Cross is sounding the alarm, every 48 seconds 1 person dies of hunger on the African continent.
What is important is that this assistance was promised, support was promised if these countries follow the path of forced democratization and strictly obey their Western curators. "Helping" Afghanistan began in 2001, 7 trillion dollars was invested to the the civil war and drug production. The next "help" was rendered to Libya and Syria. And the more they "helped" or promised, the more these countries became chaotic. Take Libya, for example: the conflict that erupted in 2011 can certainly be called a revolution of the well-fed. An economically stable state, with social guarantees and the ability to plan for its future, collapsed under the gunshots of Western expansion. The country, ranked 53rd on the Human Development Index, slipped to the 105th position. And the more the coalition of the strongest provides "assistance" in monetary terms, the poorer these countries become. They turn into black market, where weapons, drug trafficking, and resources appropriated by corporations go uncontrollably from the United States and Europe. And all this is followed by hunger, which is exacerbated by climate change.
Clare Daly, MEP for Ireland:
What about people facing climate and food security challenges? None of this benefits them. We talk about instability, but we only make it worse. We flood this place with weapons, transfer profits to European arms companies and charge a bill from our citizens. And then we come back with slaughter and do it all over again. It's racketeering! "Strategic relations"? One thing follows another, isn't it? Indeed, everything is the same as it was. And all I can say is: God save Africa from the Europeans offering help."
The West underfunds the adaptation of poor countries to climate change by 7 times. Only $ 29 billion is allocated for it instead of the necessary $ 200 billion. The priority is assistance to Kiev, which exceeds $ 126 billion. The West has new toys. This is Ukraine. Denmark pays its expenses for Ukrainians, at the expense of assistance to previously promised to Syria - this is 50 million DKK, Mali - 79 million, Bangladesh - 100 million. Sweden has reallocated over SEK 4.5 billion for foreign aid.
Nikolai Mezhevich, Professor of the Department of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University (Russia):
If a penny moves somewhere, then it immediately leaves for Ukraine one way or another. To date, the Greater Atlantic West has lost the ability to effectively pursue its policies in the poorest countries. Firstly, because of the discrediting of their own image. And, secondly, because of the reduction of financial opportunities. You see, when your Titanic is already sinking, every seat in the boat is very valuable.
The issue of aid to the world's poorest countries caused the rise of extreme right-wing parties across Europe.
Hans Vorländer, Director of the Mercator Forum on Migration and Democracy (Germany):
Europe has worked closely together since the beginning. And it gave refugees from Ukraine faster access to housing, labor markets, health care and education. But on the other hand, our research shows differences. Accepting Ukrainian refugees finds more approval. And the non-acceptance of refugees of other origins remains very strong. I guess part of it is a shift in Eastern European refugee policy. It is associated with cultural and historical similarities with Ukrainian refugees.
For some refugees, it was "all inclusive", for others it was excluded. These are the Arab and African migrants, in other words, second-class people.
- Who are you by nationality?
- Ukrainian.
- Where did you come from?
- From Ukraine.
- From Ukraine?
-Yes.
- Why are you black?
- Because I'm Ukrainian.
Ukrainian refugees are a priority for the European world. A trivial example, the European Union has opened its doors to just over 1 million Syrians since the beginning of Syria's civil war. But there are more than 7 million Ukrainians. They enjoy housing and conditions in the labor market. And the support for Ukrainians is also taken from the budget of assistance to the poorest countries.
What's going on in Bulgaria? The "shelter" for refugees is a dirty cage. A minimum amount of water and food is provided. Some claim that they were beaten before they were forcibly expelled to Turkey.
The aggravation of the economic and climatic situation only increases the flow of migration to Europe. Frontex agency notes that this year is the peak in the number of refugees from Africa and the Middle East: 281 thousand. This is 77% more than a year earlier. And, by the way, this is the highest figure since 2016.
Against this background, the EU countries (Germany, Sweden, and Norway) are beginning to send "racially wrong" refugees to Poland, so that Poland could somehow deal with their deportation back home at its own expense. The numbers are small: a little over 350 people. About 500 more are waiting for Polish hospitality. However, Warsaw believes that we can talk about tens of thousands of guests from Syria and Iraq. Moreover, of the first batch of 350, only a small fraction made it to the EU through the Belarusian-Polish border in 2021, as the Polish media point out.
Alexey Avdonin, analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies:
Europe no longer has enough funds and resources to pursue such a soft policy towards migrants. Now they are trying by hook or by crook to get rid of refugees and migrants by sending them to Poland. And Poland is already pushing them smoothly into other parts of the world, including us through this concrete fence.
In what condition do our border guards find refugees after the Polish expulsion?! They are beaten, crippled, in serious condition, dead.
"When they saw that my brother had died, they said: "Go to Belarus! Let them help you there."
It is democracy from the strongest to the poorest, first exploited, resources siphoned off, pumped full of arms and chaos, and then thrown under the fence of the great West.
